x & y
by emilyforprez
Summary: fighting with my weak hand.


Santana wants nothing more but to be in love.

Finn is the closest thing she'll get to that feeling, so she uses him up until the love in him is gone, and he looks at her like she's destroyed him.

For a few moments, it was nice.

…

She doesn't normally do this.

"What'd you do?" Finn's arms are around her waist, his lips close to her ear. She imagines pushing her face into his chest and staying like that. He's so warm, like a life-sized teddy bear.

"Relax." Her head swims with stars and pills. "Just had a few drinks. Oh, God, I'm going to be sick."

It's hard to love a broken girl when she hides the cracks far too easily. He holds her ponytail back while she vomits onto the grass outside Azimo's house.

"No one cares." She marvels over this and wipes the corner of her mouth like she's done this before. Too easy.

He says it so quietly she could have imagined it: "I care."

…

In some fantasy world, she sees greener grass on the other side, and a white picket fence, and a nice suburban home anywhere but here.

He slips out of her room before the sun comes up. It's not that he's a bad guy, but that she's just a bad girl.

…

She doesn't remember what they're talking about, but she says, "I don't really care."

He watches her a little, a twirling princess in a black dress. "Yes, you do."

She swallows down her pride and a few more drinks. "Fuck you." It's funny when he pretends to know things he doesn't, when he pretends to notice when he doesn't.

He still stares. She feels like she's spinning in a teacup and ready to hurl.

…

"We're friends, right?"

"You're drunk right now." He holds her. She clutches onto him, losing her gravity with every step closer she takes.

She looks at him, _really_ looks at him. "I could fall in love with you." Her eyes fall somewhere far off in the distance. "But you're too far gone now."

He looks at her, _really_ looks at her. "I'm not too far away," he protests.

Santana shakes her head. "Rachel, Rachel, Rachel." She hums a short, sad tune. "Center of attention."

…

"Imagine if the world was made of glass." She makes a sweeping gesture with her hands. "One little crack and everything shatters."

"What did you take?" His hands are on her shoulders. She blinks at the warm sensation, spreading all throughout her body, to the tips of her fingers.

"Everything." The world is swirling.

Finn kisses her at the apex of the maelstrom.

…

Santana is used to waking up alone after a bad trip. She doesn't do this. She doesn't try to alleviate anything with pills.

Finn is still awake when she blinks her eyes open into harsh sunlight.

"Promise me you won't do it again." There's something like sadness in his eyes. Worry. She takes a moment to register that it's there.

She swallows. "Stay with me?"

His silence says it all.

…

Finn looks at the world with rose-colored glasses. Santana doesn't dare to open her eyes.

…

Sometimes it takes two broken people.

He comes to her doorstep, distant and sad. "Rachel," he whispers. "Center of attention." There are stars in his eyes, exploding and dying.

There's a storm that night. He fucks her in rhythm with the thunder.

…

He traces the invisible cracks with his fingers, smiling into her skin. "Sometimes I want people to really see me."

Santana watches him curiously. "I always thought there was nothing to see."

He looks up at her. He doesn't really see her, not yet, not now. Rachel's eyes are reflected in his.

"You're right." He sighs. "There's nothing to see."

…

She leaves marks on his skin, like he's hers, yet still the world doesn't see them. In the privacy of her room and the delusions of a fantasy world, the world sees the scars and the people whisper, "Finn and Santana, Santana and Finn."

…

She might be in love with him, but as each day his cracks are healing, hers are growing deeper.

Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. Even so, it's all he sees.

"Rachel," he whimpers in his sleep. Rachel.

Santana listens for her name, for anything, but that's all she hears, that's all he sees. _Rachel._

.._._

Her ceiling is patterned with tiny gold stars. She watches them twinkle in the half-light, until her eyes are stinging and burning with the cold.

"What do you see?" she asks him.

She peeks just an eye open to see him. In the light of her lamp, the shadows on his skin look haunting.

He shakes his head. "I don't see anything."

There's nothing to be seen.

…

Sometimes it takes two broken people.

Santana watches him heal. She's left all alone, lonely, lonely, lonely Santana, with cracks the size of rivers and streams.

She wonders how no one sees the blood.


End file.
